I have a bright 10-year-old piano pupil whose mother comes from the Czech Republic. The girl has learnt piano before coming to me, and has no problem with the note names, but today her mother expressed a little surprise that we don't use the German method of naming notes, where Bb is called B and B is called H. The Czechs do, apparently, and I know the Finns do. How many other countries use this method?

I suppose it's not likely to die out, but for a pupil moving from one country to another, it must be even more confusing than having to change from do-re-mi, because at least that changes the whole lot. The mother was particularly surprised to hear that the German system isn't what is generally used in th US.

It's only the mother who is Czech, btw, this child has an English father and was born here and calls a B a B.

I also commented on a small point in the daughter's theory book, saying that normally when we write F# (the name, not the note) we don't write the sharp as superscript (like the way you write the 2 when expressing a square number), but on reflection, I'm not sure I was right, and it is quite common, or is it? I don't do it, but now I think I've seen it printed like that. Unfortunately many children then do have a habit of writing the sharp or flat before the note also in superscript, which has to be wrong.

I think it's also used in a number of other Eastern European countries : Poland is certainly one other.

I have a Norwegian friend who was used to B and H.

I lived - and taught - in Norway for many years and was very surprised by the use of H. Someone once told me that it originally came about by mistake in Germany, when a lower case b was mistaken for an h. I found this very hard to believe!

Yes, I heard that story too and don't really believe it - how could a whiole system be based on one person's misreading? But then, how else did such a weird system arise?

I know that because they start them learning that way it seems like second nature, but it's irrational on so many fronts.

Not quite as simple as that, but close: It wasn't a lower case b, but actually the difference between the b rotundum (which looks more like a flat) and the b quadratum (which looks more like a natural sign) that led to the B/H issue, especially when they started printing.

As far as I know, it's only Scandinavians and Poland/former Czechoslovakia who also use it, not 100% sure though...

I certainly found it very hard at the start not to constantly say H(ah)

Oh, and for the F# - we don't say that at all, neither superscript nor otherwise - we say fis

butbut - how else was Bach to write a piece based on his name ?

I wouldn't worry really one way or the other.

Coming from the teacher of a whole host of pupils who have me telling them everything in French (or a French of sorts) but with an Anglo-saxon sort of focus, I think children are very flexible and open in their understanding and can very readily grasp that maybe you call it B flat, maybe H, but it's the same note.

There's a huge range of things that have two terms for the same thing.

Yes - this nomenclature has been around for about 700 years - it's not a recent invention!

They use the German system in Hungary.

My guess is that Austria would also use the German system.

It ties in with the medieval theory of hexachords. Rather than thinking in terms of octaves, they looked at the notes as overlapping hexachords, tone-tone-semitone-tone-tone, starting on C, F and G. This gave rise to the two different notes between A and C being partly equivalent, partly distinct.

The hexachord system was applied pedagogically, as a six-note solmisation (ut re mi fa sol la) which would shift from one hexachord to another as necessary. Bonus trivia: the bottom note of this whole system, the 'gamma ut', gives us the English word 'gamut'.

I taught a German trombonist for a term - knowing about the B/H thing, we understood each other, but I'd get in funny corners asking things like "How many flats in, er, B major" [very pleased with myself for remembering it's not called B flat] ... "Eb flat and er, B, er, flat?"

... and because they wanted to avoid the tritone between B and F you had the alternative 'soft' B (i.e. Bb) to make it work and as noted above, a minuscule B was used to indicate this, which we use as our 'flat' symbol

That's where the equivalence element crops up: with the 'soft' hexachord, the one starting on F, the semitone falls in the right place to avoid any tritone. Shift from one hexachord to another with solmisation (rather like a movable-do system) and you have no issues.

We use this system in Switzerland too (unsurprisingly I suppose).

I'm not Swiss, I'm Irish but have lived here for about ten years. I started learning the piano in November of last year, having never had any kind of musical education. My teacher is from the UK, but the book that we're using is in German. I guess I could have sent away for a book in English, but I can manage with the German book and it's actually very good, I like it alot. And my teacher uses it with other students (of varying nationalites).

The book goes by the AHCDEFG method, with B for Bflat, and Fis for Fsharp, Ges for Gflat etc. And as my teacher generally teaches in German he uses both systems! He's probably used to using the German way when speaking German, and the English one when speaking english, but I think the fact that I'm speaking English but asking questions from what's in the book throws him sometimes.

We generally use a mixture of the two, and I have to say I have no problems with it at all. Probably because I've just learnt both at pretty much the same time.

No problem for my lot either.

As far as writing music is concerned we just repeat "We say F sharp but we write sharp F" After a hundred repetitions they get the point!!!

No, it isn't, there's a semitone between those two

Wikipedia has a nice comparative table of all the systems for naming tones in Western music:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note

Playing "in German" is mostly OK after several years now, but as my lessons are usually quite late in the evening my brain sometomes collapses. I was happily playing along in Bmaj the other night when flute teacher asked me to improvise over her playing in B (ie Bb) We spent a few moments trying to retune our instruments before twigging ...
And when Ges-es or Fis-is is mentioned, temporary insanity sets in!

Slightly off-topic, but Kodaly teachers tend to use the 'fis' names when singing letter names - it makes all the two-syllable words ('F sharp') into one ('fis') and therefore much easier to sing!



And there's a nice clear description of the three types of hexachord that owainsutton mentioned here:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/264553/hexachord